Carlton call in AFL as membership drive stalls

[Wooljay]

I'll be honest, I was ignorant to the plight of Carlton regarding it's membership drive and it apparently 'stalling' in December.

This seems like a strange move to me though, any Blues supporters want to shed some light on what's happened in the membership realm?

As Carlton's fans continue to give the club the cold shoulder, it has turned to the AFL for help with its 2015 membership drive – a campaign the new CEO concedes was mismanaged around Christmas and has since been partly outsourced.

Unwilling – just four weeks from the Blues' season-opening blockbuster against Richmond – to set a member target for this year, club boss Steven Trigg said his concern about what was "clearly a major challenge for us" led him to seek AFL assistance in January.

This followed Trigg learning that for a period last December Carlton did not have enough people working on membership – a scenario that saw the club miss phone calls and lose renewals through a problematic website.

After setting a club record two years ago in exceeding 50,000 members, the Blues' membership tally was 36,744 as of Wednesday.

http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...-membership-drive-stalls-20150304-13v99e.html

 

[Rusty22]

The feel good story of the year

 

[Art Vandelay_]

Maybe just maybe Carlton fans aren't even stupid enough to jump on Mick's SS Sinking ship

 

[pazza]

Big 4 club going backwards?

 

[Power Raid]

I can't believe Carlton, a powerhouse club, is having issues.

I Love the guernsey and love the history of the club. Hopefully things improve quickly as off field distractions do affect on field performance.

 

[V_23]

How much of this can be attributed to the salary cap breach punishments and the subsequent years of poor results? During that period of time it would have been difficult to attract new supporters to the club so I wonder how much of an impact, if any, that has had on the current situation. Also, poor drafting over recent years has probably made some people pessimistic.

 

[Sentinel]

Stick them in the regular Sunday twilight spots (like most clubs who have had difficulties attracting members have been forced into over the last few years) and then see how hard it can get.

Poor on-field performance won't be helping them, they've still got 7 Thursday/Friday night games and a bunch of the usual blockbusters so it's not like the draw has impacted them, but I struggle to see what the AFL can do about this. Unless the AFL are going to phone up every unsigned member for them, what significant help can they be?

Hopefully some much needed humility from old hands at the club can be gained from the embarrassing situation they've gotten themselves into or else they may find the future a little "tragic".

 

[Zerg]

Well would you look at that...

 

[KnaveyBlue]

Every year a new season begins, and every year we get a megathread about how embarrassing our membership department is. People want to give the club money, but can't as the club is simply too disorganised. Same s**t, year after year.

I'm glad Trigg actually talked about it instead of pretending it's not an issue.

For a club with our supporter base, our membership numbers are horrid.

 

[dumb]

if you read some of the carlton board posts on this, membership has been mismanaged for years.
not a member myself, but i can remember looking into it on the website and found it exceedingly difficult to part with my money, even when i wanted to.

just tried to sign up again - i want to give them my money but with methods other than credit/debit card which is the only option it seems.

 

[Beer n Skittles]

Carlton are back to being controlled by a wealthy benefactor. Buying a membership gets you seats at games, but it doesn't make you part of the club.

 

[tige19]

Do Carlton engage with the community? I always see Collingwood, Richmond, Essendon, Hawthorn, Bulldogs players at clinics and schools but honestly wouldn't even know if the Blues have a program, it starts with the kids.

 

[worthy]

if you read some of the carlton board posts on this, membership has been mismanaged for years.
not a member myself, but i can remember looking into it on the website and found it exceedingly difficult to part with my money, even when i wanted to.

just tried to sign up again - i want to give them my money but with methods other than credit/debit card which is the only option it seems.

Out of interest, what option was you looking at other than those two?

 

[SilenceOz]

Hire a freaking outsourcing contact centre [on shore] and they can take the calls and register the members.
I used to work in an IT Call centre and 20 staff can handle 600-1000 calls a day with ease.

Get the website fixed up, if it takes more than 3 clicks to get to the page you want to go to, it's a s**t website.
Membership issue fixed.

 

[Bennett.]

The feel good story of the year

Actually spat my drink.

 

[LordLucifer]

I'll be honest, I was ignorant to the plight of Carlton regarding it's membership drive and it apparently 'stalling' in December.

This seems like a strange move to me though, any Blues supporters want to shed some light on what's happened in the membership realm?



http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-news/carlton-call-in-afl-as-membership-drive-stalls-20150304-13v99e.html

Carlton are reaping what they've sown over the past 10-15 years.

The club is paying for it's sins from the salary cap rorting saga when they asked fans to get on board and ensure the club didn't go under.

Now that the club is back on its feet, they are treating those same people who helped save them from going to the wall like some sort of throw-away commodity by chopping & changing their packages from season to season. Added to that, the membership department has been run with the professionalism of a local scout group !!

 

[Danog]

Out of interest, what option was you looking at other than those two?

 

[Ashton Agar]

No surprise. Carlton are a directionless club.

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

I'll be honest, I was ignorant to the plight of Carlton regarding it's membership drive and it apparently 'stalling' in December.

This seems like a strange move to me though, any Blues supporters want to shed some light on what's happened in the membership realm?



http://www.theage.com.au/afl/afl-ne...-membership-drive-stalls-20150304-13v99e.html

Apparently they were under-resourced in the membership team during November and December. This resulted in calls going unanswered and not returned, emails not responded to, etc. In addition there were a lot of problems with auto-renewals (concessions being charged as adults, children's 3 game memberships being changed to adults, etc). Chuck in a bad season last year and we're ****ed.

Reaching 50K members was most likely due to one of our wealthy benefactors sticking her hand in her pocket. It seems that two of our 'powerhouse' supporters don't get along, which makes things even more fractured and reduces resources. Not that we should need benefactors to save our bacon every year, but I'm just trying to paint the picture.

The club hasn't truly attempted to connect with the supporters in recent years and there is a strong dissatisfaction among a lot of them.

 

[dumb]

Out of interest, what option was you looking at other than those two?

direct debit, any BPAY or online banking. i'd even mail the goddamn money. or paypal if it was possible.

terms and conditions state many payment methods are available for memberships, but credit/debit card seems to be the online delivery method of choice.

Full Payment: Your full Membership fee can be paid via any one of the following methods: VISA, MasterCard, BPay, Australia Post Billpay, Cheque, Cash, EFTPOS or via Carlton Direct upfront payment plan.

 

[MrsEddieBetts]

Do Carlton engage with the community? I always see Collingwood, Richmond, Essendon, Hawthorn, Bulldogs players at clinics and schools but honestly wouldn't even know if the Blues have a program, it starts with the kids.

They do visit schools and Kade Simpson is an ambassador for Downs Syndrome Australia. There's a few other programs but it's a pretty strong negative indicator that even a die-hard supporter like myself can't name any of the others...


Apart from Juddy's Visy Ambassadorship, obviously

 

[Shane Hird]

At least there's no more " We are Carlton, #### the rest" type stuff going on anymore.

It's a bit hard for blues fans to get excited when there's little to be excited about.

I truely believe having M.M as your spokesperson doesn't help things either. He's a boring old coot who doesn't connect with the average punter.

At Collingwood he didn't have to worry about that stuff. Ed did the promotional stuff for him.

 

[grouse mate]

A lot of Ratten apologists waiting for MM to be sacked so they can say I told you so.

 

[Upgrayedd]

Simple case of luckily the brand is pretty damn strong and people love them. Or else the way they have been run in 20 years couldn't even sink them.

Imagine if they wern't the play things of billionares and got the right people into the mix

 

[cammo78]

Pleases me no end.

As another punter mentioned - whack them on Sunday twilight week after week, and see how things REALLY are.